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 Posted: Thu May 12, 2022 10:11 pm
Under normal circumstances, hanging around Scandals until last call reliably took Reiki’s mind off of whatever feelings so desperately wanted him to be in them. But tonight? Oh, apparently not. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the visit Greg paid the bar back on Wednesday afternoon, maybe it was the confirmation that his new twink—Justin, how perfectly fitting for the retro Queer As Folk tea—not only existed but also counted himself among Miss Sayuri Kurobara Disobedience’s fans…… Maybe it was a lot of things.
Whatever the cause, though, as Reiki slipped out the bar’s side-door and across the street, the euphoria of a post-show high refused to set in. Rather than swimming in the rush of his successful numbers, and the applause, and all the salivating patrons shoving tips at him, his head felt swamped down in……everything about the mess with Greg. Things between him and Justin must have started quickly, for them to already be serious enough that Greg would consider remotely showing his face in Reiki’s presence. Back when they first met, Reiki had done his level best to beat Greg off with a stick; being the Satine in some silly little boy’s wannabe Moulin Rouge fantasy had sounded like tea for someone else’s mug, but not Reiki’s. Maybe Justin simply had more romantic inclinations.…
Maybe Reiki would find out sooner rather than later, if Greg actually decided to behave himself long enough to attend one of Reiki’s shows with his new boy-toy.… Then again, all of this was entirely the problem: Reiki was thinking as Reiki, and feeling as Reiki, and so entirely swept away in his own thoughts that he’d taken off the wig from his last number because he couldn’t stand to wear it for another second when the fantasy he was feeling refused to get itself right. If he couldn’t get properly in his jush as Miss Sayuri, then better to let his real ponytail breathe.
Fortunately, his carrying case for his hairs would prove perfectly serviceable protection until he got back to the apartment. Likewise, his heels could handle the walk perfectly fine. His dress—something of a slutty younger sister to Princess Diana’s iconic revenge dress—could move more than adequately, so he should have had an easy enough time getting back home, cleaning off his face, and flopping into bed with Cersei.
Should have.
Reiki had scarcely made it past the all-night diner sitting opposite his home bar when his ears pricked up. Had something…crashed? Down……somewhere around here?
Another, similar sound followed the first in short order, so it seemed the answer was “Yes.” Strictly speaking, Reiki didn’t need to investigate. He could have kept walking……but with all the brightly colored flags, rainbows, and so on lining these streets, it was hard to miss that Scandals sat in the middle of Destiny City’s unofficial queer district. Nobody had been bashed recently, that Reiki knew of, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening now. And what sort of drag queen would he be if he ran out now when maybe some poor baby queer needed rescuing?
A third clatter piped up and sealed the deal. With a deep, sharp breath, Reiki did a quick pivot and stomped into the alley, following the noise. “Excuse me,” he snapped into the shadows ahead, putting on the same voice he used while telling off patrons who got grabby with his drag siblings during shows or tried to interrupt somebody’s number. “Excuse me, but what sort of <********> do you think you’re committing here, on this night?”
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2022 8:16 pm
Monoceros was having a bad day. A really bad day. The kind of terrible, horrible, no-good, VERY bad day where you just wanted to scream and cry and throw things. So here he was, throwing, well, he wouldn't say the worst kind of tantrum, because he wasn't actually hurting anybody, but close enough to it, smashing up trashcans in some alley near some kind of crazy club he didn't care about at all. Absolutely nothing had gone his way today. He'd somehow lost concentration when making breakfast and burned up the rest of the ingredients he'd had; he'd accidentally erased his four hundred hours in his Animal Crossing: New Horizons save; he'd been run over by some stupid bicyclist who didn't seem to think the laws of the road applied to him and that stopping at stop signs was for nerds; the money he'd had to get himself a nice dinner out and avoid a repeat of breakfast had gotten lost (or maybe even stolen by that bicyclist, and Monoceros swore to steal the b*****d's starseed if he ever saw him again); and now he'd had his a** handed to him by a White Moon senshi because the static in his brain that Ashanite had promised would go away had come back briefly, breaking his concentration. So yeah. He was throwing s**t around. Sue him. "Murdering some ******** trash cans," he answered venomously back towards the entrance of the alley, turning to look and immediately dropping everything he'd been doing at the appearance of the stranger. Oh, man, someone who was extremely gorgeous even when angry had to have people just falling at their feet all the time.
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2022 9:07 pm
Adjusting his wig case’s strap on his shoulder, Reiki stomped closer to the person who, by their own admission, was abusing trash cans.… At least, he thought they were a person? Everything mostly seemed human……except for the tail coming off the back, which seemed puffy, and black, and……were those spikes? Like some kind of hedgehog?
No way. They couldn’t be. This had to be some kind of furry thing, right? …No sense in being too much of a b***h, if it was. Furries got enough garbage already without kicking them when they were down.
“Well, first of all? Hi. Hey. Hi, I’m Reiki, and I’m part of the legendary House of Disobedience-and-Poppins. What should I call you? Then, secondly: whoever did the work on your fursuit? Or—I guess it’s not a full fursuit, but…” Pointing one of his immaculately black-painted nails, he gestured at the tail. “I really hope you tipped your costumer well because the craftsmanship on your tail-belt is exquisite. Honestly, I’d swear it was the real thing. Third and finally of all, though?”
Part of Reiki told him to draw himself up to full height…but the trashcan-kicker was already considerably shorter than he was and his heels only exacerbated that. So, instead, with a deep breath, Reiki slouched a bit at the hips, trying to seem a bit less like some evil giant lording his unspeakable tallness over everyone else and their little dogs too.
“Thirdly, you’re lucky that it’s already past last call because if you were doing this during someone’s number at my home-bar? You’d have to catch these hands. It’s still not exactly right for you to be kicking around other people’s trashcans—especially when everyone on this block is a queer small business owner and times are hard enough already? But you’re an easy eight even when doing something obnoxious, probably a nine when you aren’t, and you’re not interrupting a performance that one of my fellow local artists worked hard to put together, so I’ll gladly hear an explanation for why you’re doing all this to the trashcans…”
Trailing off, he gave Trashcan Kicker a Pointed Look, one that begged them to please, at least make their explanation interesting.
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2022 9:31 pm
Monoceros swallowed as the other person (Reiki, he learned very very quickly) reamed him out. His cheeks flushed and he looked down, feeling very, very small and ashamed of himself. (Not even the youmaglia, it seemed, could overcome the sheer amount of shame and despair welling up inside Monoceros, though it did try very hard to make Monoceros listen to its whispers of murder). "I, um." He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes flicking back up (and up and up) to Reiki. "Well, I... You ever heard of that kid's book? The, um, the 'terrible, horrible, no-good, VERY bad day'? I, um. Had a pretty bad one. Between getting run over by a bike, dinner money getting stolen, and then getting beat up because my brain did the thing where it skips time and I sort of, like, seize, I guess, and that's only half of it? I kinda lost it." He gestured helplessly at the trashcans. "Figured that was better than winding up hitting the next person who just breathed wrong, y'know?" he finished lamely, cringing and staring back at the ground. A moment later though, he looked back up again as something else Reiki said registered. "Wait, what, though? I'm an eight or a nine what, exactly?" he asked, frowning in genuine confusion. "Annoyance?"
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2022 9:47 pm
Several very important things jumped out to address in all of that, but before literally anything else, Reiki had to clarify: “No, no, like…on a scale from one to ten, with one being ‘hard pass’ and ten being ‘smite me like the fist of an angry god, bang me like a screen-door in a hurricane, hit me baby one more time, he’s a one-stop shop, makes my panties drop, immediately swipe right, take me home and make me understand the meaning of Madonna’s Like A Virgin on a deep, spiritual level like I never have before.’”
In case any of that was too subtle, he tacked on, “I’m saying that I’d sleep with you, if you hadn’t just had a day from Hell and I weren’t relatively fresh out of an engagement and all, but that’s……”
Reiki waved a hand at nothing in particular, as if it could dismiss his own problems and any impulse to discuss them with anyone, ever. It didn’t entirely do the trick, but a quick glance back toward the streetlamps outside the alley made an idea lightbulb flare up in Reiki’s head. “So, firstly, can I call you ‘Alexander’? You kind of didn’t give me a name, and seeing as you also had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, it seems appropriate? And secondly…the diner we’re next to, Gertrude’s? They’re open all night and they have pretty much anything you could want. Whatever dessert you like best, they have a version that’s to die for. May I treat you to something nice?”
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2022 5:24 pm
Monoceros stared at Reiki like he was insane as he went off on that... excessive tangent about... Monoceros being hot?! His face felt unbearably hot and he ducked, staring at the ground while he tried to figure out what the hell his feelings were doing. Nobody had ever complimented him like that before. Or, well, in that general sort of type of compliment, because the way Reiki did it was so extremely... wow. He glanced around, considering for a long moment, then nodded. If Reiki was someone powered, he would've powered up before coming into the alleyway, because he would have felt what Monoceros was. So he chose to power down, looking into Reiki's eyes and smiling awkwardly. "Alexander is cute," he said, "But my name's Toráin. It's nice to meet you. And yes, I'll take that offer. Thank you. You don't have to be so generous."
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2022 6:32 pm
Reiki blinked for a long moment at……whatever had just happened? To make his new porcupine furry friend’s clothes just change out of nowhere like that? That……Reiki had previously constructed several costumes with some sick’ning reveals built into them, both for himself and for some of the other performance artists in town, but Toráin (apparently; cute name) had not done it Britney Style and ripped off a pair of executive realness-looking trousers fixed with velcro to reveal a nude illusion catsuit covered in little sparkly Swarovskis from neck to ankle.
As far as Reiki could tell, all Toráin had done was……blink? Or breathe? Or something? One moment, he was in some cute little number with the porcupiney tail-belt and a brown jacket. The next, he……just wasn’t. Especially peculiar, Reiki noticed, tilting his head and squinting at Toráin’s forehead—
“Didn’t you just…your tattoo, it like…” Limply, Reiki gestured at his own forehead, but it didn’t much help him explain things, so……since words didn’t feel like cooperating, he motioned for Toráin to follow him. “If it helps you any? Don’t think of it as generosity. Think of it as……I don’t know…uh. There’s probably another word for it, I’m sure there is. Either way, it’s not a matter of needing to do anything; I want to get you something to eat and hopefully turn your night around a little bit.”
Mostly, Reiki had no other apt description of what he was doing, leading Toráin into Gertrude’s and waiting for Late-Shift Pink Hair Rachael to seat them at a booth, because the accurate term was, indeed, generosity. But maybe, if he just continued ignoring this inconvenient truth, it would go away exactly like global warming never did.
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2022 6:47 pm
Toráin decided to just ignore Reiki's comment about the forehead thing. He really didn't want to try to come up with some fake explanation for why he had that a moment ago and didn't now. He smiled shyly and followed after Reiki, snorting at his blustering word antics. "Okay, sure, no generosity, got it," he said with a bit of snark, unable to help himself and grinning mischievously. "Thank you. And uh, sorry about your friend's trash cans." He sat in the booth across from Reiki and tugged at his leather jacket, adjusting so he pulled it out from under his butt as he sat and then peered at the menu. Oh, God. Now he had to try to pick the least pricy thing on the menu that would actually fill his large stomach. It growled loudly as he thought of it and his face turned cherry red again. "Sorry," he mumbled, hunching his shoulders and hiding behind the menu.
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2022 6:59 pm
For all Reiki didn’t notice Toráin spectacularly ignoring his question about the abruptly missing tattoo—it had been right there, in the center of Toráin’s forehead, a black eight-pointed star that the artist had gotten to look like cracks in his skin—he applied the same approach to Toráin’s stomach: a quick wave of the hand and moving right along without making a big deal out of it.
“I wouldn’t call us ‘friends,’ exactly?” With a pensive hum, Reiki scanned the menu. For the most part, it was a perfunctory gesture to hopefully help Toráin not feel awkward about however long he needed to look at the menu. Reiki, on the other hand, was in here often enough that he knew what Gertrude’s had to offer, knew what he liked best, and only really needed to glance over the options to see if he might feel some different type of way than he thought he felt.
“Not that I don’t like Alice and Tawny—the nice lesbians who own this place,” he clarified. “I like what I’ve seen of them quite a lot? We just don’t have the sort of close relationship that I’d actually call us ‘friends.’ More like, they’re the owners of the best place to go for food after a show and I’m one of the drag queens who comes to their diner after last call.… Specifically, the really tall one who generally tried to keep my drag siblings from being too messy, especially if they’ve been ignoring me about why they shouldn’t drink during a show.”
Ugh, that was always messy. Drinking while performing did a disservice to your audience, your numbers, and most importantly, to you.
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 12:07 am
Toráin chuckled a bit in response. So, Reiki was a drag mom of some kind, then. That was sweet, and explained more of his behavior. Toráin himself had never.... well, as far as he knew, ever gotten into the drag scene, but he knew he had some femme clothing... Hm. Maybe he could ask Reiki for tips, sometime, or something? Assuming they stayed friends... "Well, that's nice of you," he said, humming softly as he finally picked a basket of chicken fingers and fries. That sounded perfect, and... Reiki had mentioned dessert... So the chocolate fudge lava cake with an ice cream scoop sounded friggin' delicious. "Thank you again, for doing this," he murmured, "You're so kind to a complete stranger."
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 12:34 am
While waiting for Toráin to finish picking what he wanted, Reiki fired off a quick text to Haruhi. Didn’t seem right to say pretty much anything about responsibility while leaving his cousin to expect him home around one time that……probably wasn’t happening: [Stopped at the diner after the show. Don’t wait up unless you want to. Want me to bring anything home for you? heart ]
Fortunately, Thom With An Aquamarine Undercut And An H showed up to take their orders soon thereafter—the Oreo sweet crepes sounded perfect to Reiki.… Greg probably would’ve found some bullshit justification for having a conniption about them, but…well. A quick glance down at his left hand, at the band of still-pale skin where his ring used to go, reminded Reiki that he wasn’t obligated to give a damn about what Greg thought anymore.… Not unless he and Justin came to one of Reiki’s shows.
But that sounded like a problem for Future Reiki.
Present Reiki, on the other hand, had a cute redhead sitting across from him, who kept trying to compliment him in ways that honestly weren’t such a big deal.
“We’ve all been there, right?” Shrugging, Reiki took a long sip of his water (and silently thanked someone, something, or whatever that the waitstaff all knew him well enough to know that the answer to ‘do you want a straw’ was always ‘yes’ when they saw him with his lipstick on). “When I first heard the racket you were making in the alley? I felt like ‘Oh, no, what if it’s some alt-right or militant Evangelical jack-offs ******** with someone from the neighborhood? What if it’s one of the babies’—not……not, like, literal babies, obviously? But the kids who are like 17, 18, and they have a fake ID so they can go to the queer bars, and even though the bartenders clock them and don’t give them alcohol, they also don’t kick them out, since……you never know how badly someone might need a place to go.”
With a deep breath, Reiki sank a bit in his side of the booth—not that the height difference was quite as pronounced while sitting down, but……it still seemed better to not risk coming off like he wanted to lord it over Toráin. “Then, instead of a bashing, I found you, and…I mean, the fact that you were taking your bad day out on the trashcans? Sounded like you may not have a lot of people to talk to instead? And…”
He shrugged, limply, grasping at any way he could find to continue acting like anyone would do something like this when he knew good and goddamn well that that wasn’t true. “…First of all, I’m grateful to not have to fight anybody after co-hosting a show in which I also had three numbers? Not that I wouldn’t do it—a lot of the idiots who would try to mess with people by a queer bar…tend to turn tail and run when a drag queen who’s taller than they are comes at them in full paint and heels higher than their girlfriends would ever wear. But it’s nice to not have to fight, and……I don’t know? I just……want to be a version of me who helps people who are having it rough, y’know?”
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 1:07 am
Back at the apartment where Haruhi lived with Reiki, nis phone chimed and ne glanced at it, rolling nis eyes fondly and shooting back an answer: [An order of the Oreo sweet crepes. Stay safe, Kiki. heart ] Toráin shrank a bit when he heard what Reiki had thought was happening, cringing and shaking his head. "No, thankfully. I had enough of being a victim of that as a kid, no way would I let someone be doing that to anybody now. It's such bullshit," he replied, also sipping at his water. The coolness of it soothed an ache he didn't know he had in his throat and he sighed a bit. "It's true that I don't really have anyone to talk to, though," he whispered. He couldn't tell Reiki anything about the circumstances, given how magical they were, but it didn't change the fact that no, he didn't have any friends. "I'm glad you didn't have to fight anybody, too, but I have a feeling that you would win even in your, um, drag. Which looks super awesome, by the way."
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 1:44 am
Although Reiki took note of Haruhi’s reply—and reacted to it with a heart so ne knew Reiki had read it and would get nis crepes—he focused on Toráin. Especially given how he’d steered the conversation into such serious waters, it wouldn’t have been right to just leave Toráin adrift and ignore him.
“I’m sorry that people put you through that, too,” Reiki told him, lowering his voice somewhat. Not that there was too much risk of people overhearing, given the Friday-night-into-Saturday-morning bustle of night-owl customers, but…it was a matter of letting Toráin know that Reiki took what he was saying seriously and wanted to give him some degree of privacy, even in a semi-public place. “Growing like a weed got me out of the physical harassment back in school—or most of it anyway? But as soon as the other little shits in my class figured out that I’d be the one in trouble if I reacted too much when they came at me for wearing a skirt uniform to school? Ugh, god, forget about it.”
To emphasize just how much he still bore a grudge over what he’d gone through at Knightside and Meadowview, Reiki rolled his eyes so dramatically, they would’ve seen him not only in the back row of the balcony, but also at the bus stop down the street. “And of course, the teachers almost never do anything to step in for queer kids…because, on some level, they think we deserve it…and sometimes, they’re happy to tell you so to your face, like? Wow, we have so much in common, Mrs. Mellonger. I also wish that I weren’t getting my alleged gender-confusion all over my classmates. If I had my way, I’d be going to St. Magdalena’s because they’ve got the prettiest uniform of all the high schools in town and my gay, gender-creative a** looks better in black than ******** orange.”
Huffing softly, he gave Toráin a small smile, though. “I actually made my own dupe of the St. Magdalena’s uniform in my junior year…and I made a new one last year to wear for a number to ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’…and thanks, by the way? For liking this dress? I……I made this one, too.… My Aunt Hanako started teaching me when I started getting too tall for the cute plaid skirts at Hot Topic.”
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 4:13 pm
"Yeah, I think black looks better than orange on most people," Toráin said, chuckling and gesturing to his fiery manbun. "You cannot possibly pay me to wear anything with the main colors being red, orange, or yellow. Being a redhead sucks... Oh, s**t, memory unlocked: not only was I a dirty gayboy, I was also totes soulless and evil and marked by devil, like double-time." He rolled his eyes, scoffing at the ceiling. "Honestly, you'd think those jackasses would get some new material once in a while." "And like, duh? Your dress is beautiful. You look just.... super-duper, dude. ANd making it yourself? I could never. I mostly just cook. And bake. Those two worlds are soooo different, too, in terms of the chemistry and yada yada, I don't wanna bore you with the details."
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 4:31 pm
Reiki snorted at the jokes Toráin had to share. Not that any of the context was funny—objectively, none of it was—but coping with humor and sarcasm was a time-honored tradition of queer people. “Redheads have one distinct advantage, if you ask me? You guys look better in green more often than the rest of us.… Besides, people used to say that ‘soulless, evil, marked by the Devil’ thing about left-handed folks too. At a certain point, it’s like ‘Okay, so how much of this do you actually believe and how much of it is you being jealous that someone else can be different from you and perfectly happy?’”
After taking another long drink of water, Reiki shot Toráin a smile—distinctly softer than tended to go with his paint job. “I mean, it goes both ways, here? I can cook enough to get by, toss a couple of my Ojiisan’s—my grandfather, that is? I can throw some of his easier recipes together, but I’m dangerous in a kitchen if it gets too complicated.… When we were in undergrad, I actually used to whine at Junsei, my brother, to please make something for me because the dorm food all sounded gross, but I had to eat something, I didn’t have the spare cash for another order of takeout this week, and microwaved chocolate pop-tarts weren’t cutting it.”
Hoping to bring things back around to an actual point, he shrugged. “Other people having their own talents doesn’t mean yours are meaningless, you know. Or that you don’t deserve to feel good about what you can do.”
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